Can you dump your bed and sleep on a hard floor for a week? That is the million dollar question that needs gazillion dollar responses today. The thing is; beds are downright comfortable.
They not only lead you to a good night’s sleep but also ensure you wake up feeling relaxed. However, there is one fact about mattresses commonly overlooked by bed connoisseurs. Sleeping on these cushion-sized foams hurts your body to the core. Sadly, only a few individuals notice it.
So, what can you do to alter the situation? Sleeping on a hard floor, as you will, later on, realize, gives you more energy and less pain. Heck, sleeping on the floor can also strengthen your marriage and Katy Bowman has always inspired my wife to be a better partner.
Bowman, through herb books: Movement Matters and Move Your DNA educates the world about pain relief and proper body alignment. Such insights, to say the least, are what inspire my wife, a longtime runner, to substitute the floor for that cozy mattress.
For your information, my wife and Katy Bowman, M.S. more than inspire me to be a better husband and father.
How You Profit From Sleeping on the Floor
Bowman, through her books, reveals that we live in an over-cushioned world. Let us face it. Everything we sit or sleep on cushions us from the hard elements of life. According to Katy, too much cushiness makes us soft and weak.
Moving forward, Bowman outlines how you get to benefit from ditching your bed for the floor. Remember, Katy has slept on the hard and unforgiving floor for the last 3 ½ years meaning she knows what she is talking about.
Thanks to her experience, Bowman outlines that you sleep better, enjoy a deep restful sleep, and wake up feeling like you are on top of the world once you spend your night on the floor.
But why would anyone in their right state of mind do that?
Katy reveals that those pricey memory foams do your body more harm than good given that they are excellent memory restrictors. They, as a result of locking your body into one position, leave you susceptible to aches and pains that hardly go away.
Anyhow, it is when you dump your mattress for the floor that you strengthen your muscles. Recall, the solid nature of the floor exerts pressure on all your body parts thus massaging you throughout the night.
You, all thanks to the dynamic rest, get to enjoy a deeply restful slumber. Above all, you develop a more robust muscle structure; a structure likened to that of athletes.
The above-mentioned arguments, to say the least, appealed to my wife and so she decided to give it a trial. For the record, my lover, my one and only had been suffering from annoying muscle knots for a very long time.
Her agonies were caused by a weight training program that left her soar. She, after conceptualizing every bit of Bowman’s advice, decided to give the floor a chance. After all, what can go wrong?
So, my wife, the only woman I have ever shared a bed with decided to jump out of our matrimonial haven slowly but sure. Her absence deeply affected me but I was very curious to find out what was going on.
A chat with her revealed that her slow transition from the mattress to the floor had significant benefits; benefits you are already familiar with. Further on, I noted that she adhered to a series of steps; pointers you need to conceptualize.
Best Floor Sleeping Approaches
Sleeping on the floor does not happen in a fortnight. It is a transition that requires a lot of patience and energy to effect.
Step 1: Adjust your sleeping position.
According to Bowman, sleeping on a mattress has its dire consequences. For example, investigations show that the mattress forms a depression depending on the position you take while sleeping.
In short, your body has to adapt to the configuration of the mattress, something that hurts your body rather than to soothe it. To test this hypothesis, my wife and I decided to switch sides.
I, on the first two nights, felt uneasy but became more comfortable on the third night. Heck, I slept like a baby! So, what happens after adjusting your sleep position?
Step 2: Change rooms.
Transitioning from the mattress to the floor is never easy. You have to, apart from changing your sleeping position on the mattress you are used to, sleep on a completely different cushion altogether that is positioned in another room.
Trust me; it might feel weird at times, sometimes lonely but all these efforts pay off at the end of the day.
Step 3: No more foams.
It was when Bowman ditched the new mattress for an egg crate foam topper that things turned for the best. After the first night on the topper, Katy could hardly tell where she was. Thus, sleeping on a foamless platform can do your body a lot of good.
Step 4: Dump your bed completely.
What happens after you are done with the foams? You need to cushion up the floor. Bowman, being the test subject took the egg crate foam topper, combined it with a foam camping topper and placed both of them next to the bed.
Spending the first night on the floor proved that fear can be overcome with the right mindset. Her first night on the floor was quite comfortable. Bowman, despite waking up a few times enjoyed the rest of the night, as if she was sleeping on her bed.
That is when she decided that she will never go back to her matrimonial bed come rain or shine.
Step 5: Cut down on the cushioning.
Bowman, in her final stage, eliminated as much cushioning as she could get her hands on. Sleeping on an un-foamed floor, as Katy Bowman puts it, was super amazing. In fact, her first night on the floor left her feeling relaxed from head to toe.
That is when she did away with some of the paddings she had put on the floor. The elimination process, however, left her with an inch or less of foam. Sleeping on the hard floor, for your information, was quite a hassle for the first few weeks.
My wife, who was now one and the same with Bowman’s teachings, had abandoned our bedroom and everything we hold dear. Regardless, I felt proud that she had done the impossible.
Lessons Learned
1. Why the super expensive mattresses no longer excite me.
All factors constant, sleeping on the floor was a-dream-come true for me. The first day of this experience tested my resolve but I endured and emerged successfully. I, at the end of it all, was able to enjoy more productive days with zero need for those giant-like coffee mugs.
My back and spine stopped hurting once I slept on the floor making me question the need for an overpriced mattress.
2. Sleep quality.
The quality of my sleep never bothered me even for a moment. However, Bowman changed my perspective when she illustrated that someone who enjoyed a good night’s sleep barely finds it hard to go through a long, challenging day.
My wife, being an athlete, benefitted the most from sleeping on the floor because her body got the massage it needed to eliminate all the muscle soreness caused by her intensive workout sessions.
3. Patience is everything.
Bowman says that the effects resulting from sleeping on the floor creep in after a while. Therefore, patience is important. However, these effects are likely to change depending on the amount of time you devote to floor use.
People looking for more profound effects should spend more than a week sleeping on the floor. As for me?
4. I love my bed to the moon and back.
You never appreciate something until it is gone. To be blunt; I wish my wife and I would go back to the good old days!